Discrimination of voice versus place contrasts in aphasia

Abstract A phoneme discrimination test based upon CCVC (consonant-consonant-vowel-consonant) syllables was administered to 36 aphasics, 91 brain-damaged subjects, and 42 normal controls, in normal listening conditions. Errors in the discrimination of voice and place contrasts were determined, and the scores (voice-minus-place errors) obtained by the four experimental groups were compared statistically. Aphasic patients, when compared with the other groups, show a greater difficulty in discriminating place than voice contrasts. Some implications of these findings are discussed.